


xxvi. if you thought the head trauma was bad...

by tempestaurora



Series: the kids aren't alright [whumptober 2020] [26]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Fire, Gen, Overdose, Post-Canon, The Apocalypses are All Over and the World is Saved, Whump, Whumptober
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:42:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27214366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tempestaurora/pseuds/tempestaurora
Summary: Klaus overdoses in an alley a year after the apocalypse. He sees God, wakes up to a night club on fire, and then sees his favourite new firefighter, who's come to help him.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves & Luther Hargreeves
Series: the kids aren't alright [whumptober 2020] [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930186
Comments: 23
Kudos: 104





	xxvi. if you thought the head trauma was bad...

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Migraine
> 
> idkidkdikdidkdidkdidkdidk thank god this month is nearly over

When Klaus came back from the dead, he had a headache.

No, not a headache. A fucking _migraine._ He could tell. He knew it would last and last, that it would be the kind that he would still be nursing well into next week.

The next thing he noticed was the fire.

It flickered out the windows of the club he had been in that night, and smoke curled up into the night sky above, blocking out the half moon.

Klaus thought about getting up from his makeshift bed – AKA the puddle in the alley where he’d fallen unconscious and, not for the first time, died. Instead, he just sighed and rested his head back in the dirty water. The heat rolling from the club was enough to combat the chill from the puddle, and Klaus laid there, listening to the yelling.

It had been a long apocalypse. Several of them, in fact, in quick succession. And he’d stayed sober for a time, too, until he broke and fell right back into old patterns. Klaus had once thought he’d never go back, but outside of the ‘60s, the ghosts were louder and more distracting, and sometimes it was just so easy to make them vanish.

Even now, there was still enough in his system (despite the total system reboot), to keep him alone in the alley. He wouldn’t have been if Ben were still around, but then again – if Ben were still around, he’d be berating him over lying in a puddle in an alley right next to a raging fire. Maybe it was for the best that Klaus was alone now.

Except, even when he was, he wasn’t—

Amongst the sounds of fire roaring and people shouting as they fled the scene and watched from the street, sirens wailed. It wasn’t the familiar ones of police or ambulance, so it must’ve been the fire department, coming to put out the rager.

Klaus sighed and waited. One of them would surely find him, pile him into an ambulance and his emergency contact would be called to pick him up. _Again._ Diego had been doing better, since the apocalypse, with being patient with Klaus’… _Klausness,_ but maybe three calls from the hospital in a month was a bit much, even for him. For all Klaus knew, the next time it happened he’d be forced into another intervention.

There’d been one about four months before in the dim light of his hospital room, in which Five had shown up and pulled a _novel_ of an intervention speech out of his coat pocket with zero hesitation and read it aloud. He hadn’t even been told there _would_ be an intervention. He just had that on him all the time!

The sirens silenced as the red light flashed like a strobe light across the walls of the alley. Any minute now.

Klaus tried to imagine Diego’s face when he picked Klaus up from the hospital. Then he stopped, because that was depressing. Instead, he tried to imagine Mom’s cooking when he got home. She always made extra special meals when one of them got hurt. And death—death was a kind of hurt.

He was in the middle of pondering whether she’d choose an old-fashioned roast dinner or some kind of casserole when footsteps echoed through the alley.

“We got a body!” someone called. Klaus blinked up at the figure in full turnout gear, leaning over him. Their face flashed with surprise as they grasped for their radio. “They’re alive, Cap. Can you move?” They directed this part to Klaus, who sniffed and shrugged. “Alright, stay there. Help’s coming.”

_Help,_ as the firefighter said, came in the form of two EMTs, who asked a series of questions before lifting Klaus onto a backboard and up onto a gurney. It wasn’t his first time at this particular rodeo, but Klaus didn’t recognise the paramedics – he missed his old buddy who had saved him from several ODs and high-fived him every time he woke up – and they talked over his head as they wheeled him towards the street.

He stared between them, his head pounding incessantly, and thought of God.

She’d sighed heavily when he appeared in that other place – the black-and-white place, the _other side._

“Not again,” She’d said.

“Oh, I just thought I’d pay you a visit,” Klaus had replied. He’d been struck by the fact that he was dead. Again. That he’d let it happen all over again and apparently couldn’t stop. That he was playing with some kind of immortality and being rough with the boundaries of life and death. That maybe, this time, she wouldn’t let him go back.

But all She said was, “I don’t like you. Don’t visit me,” and waved a hand that sent him back to life in a sharp gasp of puddle water.

Maybe it was time for that next intervention. Maybe Five had written a whole new speech for him. Maybe Diego—

“Klaus?”

Klaus blinked and looked past the EMT, to where a large figure peered over him.

“Luther?” he croaked.

Luther removed his helmet, his face caught in a concerned frown.

“You know this guy?” One of the EMTs asked.

“Yeah, he’s my brother,” Luther replied. “What happened?”

“Oh, you know, _fire_ ,” Klaus said, with a wave of a hand. They’d stopped by the doors of the ambulance, and Klaus used the light to take in Luther. He wore the full firefighter turnout gear, his helmet wedged between his side and elbow. Everything was a little blackened, like maybe he’d gone into the fire or stood too close to the smoke. He was still on his probation year, but Klaus had been as excited as everyone else when Luther said that he was joining the New York Fire Department.

Luther’s entire existence revolved around saving lives. It made sense that this was where he’d end up – and he wore it well, too. Even with the oversized shoulders and barrel chest. Klaus had seen him on the six-o-clock news after a building collapse a few months earlier, in which Luther had used his super strength to hold up part of the building long enough for the first responders to get everyone out.

The headline the next day was: _Number One is Back!_

Now he stood before Klaus, like some kind of sign from the other side, or maybe just Ben— _you’re not alone tonight, Klaus._

“You were inside the building?” Luther asked. His eyes searched Klaus for signs of smoke that Klaus was free from.

“At one point, yes,” Klaus replied. An EMT climbed past him into the ambulance, the other being called to tend to some burns. “But, I’m fine.”

“You’re on a gurney.”

“An over-reaction.” It was Luther’s big dumb sincere eyes that made Klaus feel so guilty about lying, made him want to put him at ease. “I’m really okay. I probably don’t even need to go to the hospital, anyway.”

In Luther’s pause to determine the truth, the EMT in the ambulance asked, “Hey, if you’re Luther’s brother, does that mean you’re one of them Umbrella kids?”

Klaus waved a hand. “In another life.”

“Were you the knife one? He was always my favourite?”

Klaus frowned. “Do I _look_ like I’m endlessly nursing a hero complex?”

Before the EMT could respond, Luther supplied, “Four. The Séance.”

“Oh, no way! You can talk to ghosts, right?”

“When I’m sober.”

Luther’s face cleared. “You’re not sober?”

“I—”

“We _talked_ about this, Klaus.”

“I’m only a _little_ not sober—”

“Klaus!”

“I’m literally fine, Luther!” Klaus sat up properly. He probably didn’t even _need_ the ambulance or the hospital. He literally _couldn’t die._ Or, could, but death didn’t like to keep him. “I’m alive, aren’t I?”

“But that means nothing with you,” Luther sighed. “Did they find you in the building or on the ground?”

“I’m _fine_ —”

“He was in a puddle in the alley,” the EMT said, the fucking _snitch._ Klaus glared at him.

“In a _puddle._ ”

“This is an over-reaction,” Klaus said.

“I’m not over-reacting!” Luther cried. “You’re—you’re _under_ -reacting! Klaus! Why were you in a puddle?”

“Because that’s where I overdosed, Luther!” Klaus cried suddenly, wanting it all to be over. “That’s just _where_ it happened.”

“Oh, Klaus.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Say _Oh, Klaus_ and give me that face.”

“There’s no face.”

Klaus scoffed. “No face? You look like a kicked puppy. Like a giant fucking abused golden retriever.”

“You’re going to the hospital,” Luther said.

“I’m not gonna die, Luther, I’m fine—”

“You _could_ die—”

“And I’d come right back to life! God Herself claimed not ten minutes ago that She hated me and doesn’t want me anywhere near Her side of the veil!”

Luther wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and looked to the EMT. “He’s going to the hospital. Wait for me.”

“What? Luther—”

Luther vanished into the dark and Klaus was wheeled up into the ambulance, despite his fussing and complaining. Only a moment later, Luther squeezed into the narrow space beside the gurney, and the doors shut behind them.

“What are you doing?” Klaus asked with a sigh.

“Going with you to the hospital. Maybe they’ll give you another stomach pump.”

“I’m conscious, they won’t do that—”

“Maybe I’ll ask them to, because then you’ll get some sort of consequence from this situation.”

Klaus scoffed. “Like the cost for this luxury taxi ride to the hospital isn’t a consequence.”

“We’re rich,” Luther said. “Very little is a consequence to us.”

“You’re right,” Klaus sighed. “It’s either the apocalypse or everything’s fine and dandy. What are you doing? Who are you texting?”

“Diego.”

“Well, stop that!”

“Why?” Luther took the phone away from Klaus’ flying hands.

“Because you don’t need to call my emergency contact if _you’re_ already here!”

“I’m not texting him about _that._ ”

“Well, what are you texting him about?”

Luther paused then shrugged and replied, “I’m asking him to buy some Chinese food. We’re gonna go to the hospital, check that you’re okay, and then we’re going back to the mansion and eating as much Chinese food as humanly possible while Five recites his latest intervention speech for you.”

Klaus tipped his head back and sighed. Eventually, he said, “If we’re eating as much as _humanly possible,_ then we’re gonna need a lot. God knows you can get through enough portions for a family of five all by yourself.”

Luther rolled his eyes, but Klaus caught the smile.

“Ask him to get noodles this time? None of that egg fried rice crap.”

“You got it,” Luther replied with a smile. Klaus stared up at the ceiling. He could basically _see_ Ben’s smirk. Even when Ben was gone, Klaus still had a brother to keep him company and pull him out of alley way puddles. Which was very much annoying, of course, but Klaus had to admit: he appreciated it, just a little.

**Author's Note:**

> luther as a fire fighter is the only reasonable job for luther after the apocalypse
> 
> also, if u have any prompts for day 28, with the most unbearable title (that i will probably change): "such wow... many normal... very oops..." and the prompts "accidents, hunting season or mugged" that would be super helpful, thank you!


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